• * A multifaceted look at the latest trends in furniture design
• * Presents the most innovative designers
• * Well-informed and authoritative investigative essays

Limited Edition is the new phenomenon in furniture design. The demand for unique pieces is steadily increasing. With prototypes, one-offs and limited product lines, designers are making furniture objects outside of, and parallel to, the industrial manufacturing system. Furniture prototypes have always been an element of the industrial design process, but now they are being brought from the workshops and presented to the public as embodiments of one of the most exciting creative fields of our age. In the global village with its standardized commodities, exclusive one-offs with an artisanal flavor are turning into coveted objects. The limited furniture series so manage to satisfy the collector’s appetite with objects where the boundary between furniture and art dissolve.

Limited Edition follows this new direction in furniture design and uncovers its background in meticulous investigative essays based on the author’s ongoing interviews with key designers, gallerists, auctioneers and manufacturers. With a rich selection of images it presents the very best from this new area as well as new and behind the scenes images from some of its leading protagonists

Transrock by Campana Brothers

additional text: Through design prototypes, limited editions and design-as-art objects, Limited Edition documents a growing phenomenon in contemporary furniture design. It is a book about designers who are making furniture objects outside of, and parallel to, the industrial manufacturing system. Limited Edition is illustrated with a rich selection of works that reflect the very best of this new area as well as new and behind the scenes images from some of its leading protagonists, including: Gaetano Pesce, Marc Newson, Maarten Baas, Tom Dixon, Studio Job, Zaha Hadid and Johanna Grawunder, together with an equally fascinating collection of newcomers and comparative unknowns. It gives us an intriguing insight into their latest work as well as their thoughts about the current state their profession. From over 40 interviews with key designers, manufacturers, gallerists, auctioneers and critics, the author Sophie Lovell has catalogued and compiled a unique and timely overview of one of the most exciting creative fields of our age. Limited Edition is beautifully packaged in a custom-layout and typography specially designed by the Australian graphic design team Rinzen.

Office Pets by Hella Jongerius for Vitra

Limited edition / AVAILABLE MARCH 2009

Sophie Lovell
Prototypes, One-Offs and Design Art Furniture
255 pages. 380 colour illustrations
20 x 26 cm. Hardcover
CHF 89.90* / € 49.90** / GB£ 39.90
ISBN-13: 978-3-7643-8895-9. English
© 2009, Birkhäuser
*Recommended sales price in Switzerland
**The Euro price is a net price, subject to local V.A.T